The Big Cheese Festival, Caerphilly

The Big Cheese is one of my favourite days of the year. It's a weekend long festival of all things Welsh and of course medieval as it's set in one of the greatest European medieval castles, Caerphilly Castle. Caerphilly Castle is actually the second largest castle in Britain with only Windsor Castle being bigger. 

Caerphilly Castle, Wales

If you'd like to know more about the castles history check out this link where you can find lots more impressive photographs.
www.castlewales.com/caerphil.html 


The Big Cheese Festival has lots of craft stalls from all around Wales with demonstrations in a variety of crafts, including wood carving, wool spinning on a wheel, smelting of arrow heads as well as more modern crafts. 

Wool that has been spun by hand and dyed.

Examples of tools used for smelting arrow heads or jewellery from molten metals.

There is also the obligatory funfair with all the rides and games that you can think of. That's not really my thing but L'il Miss turned out to be a dab hand at 'hook a duck'. I don't trust her yet with darts! :-)

Mr Ty Siriol's favourite part was the food festival. He loves anything food! There are so many stalls to choose from that you'll never go hungry. 

Mine and L'il Miss' favourite part of the festival was the re-enactments of medieval life and military. As well as having a medieval village set up in the castle itself there were also demonstrations of the different weapons they used and how they were trained. Boys as young as 7 years were recruited and trained to fight. Mock battles between rival tribes were re-enacted followed by demonstrations of different swords and later on, muskets and canons. Yes, they fired a cannon for us! L'il Miss didn't like the loud noise much though. After the demonstrations we were free to go and talk to the musketeers and swordsmen, and even hold some of the weapons! 

Re-enactment of a battle between tribes. Note the dead lying on the ground.

Cooking dinner on an open fire in the medieval village at Caerphilly Castle

L'il Miss Ty Siriol ready for battle!

Family life in the medieval village at Caerphilly Castle

Mrs Ty Siriol going into battle. Maybe I need to work on the camouflage?

Mr Ty Siriol ready to protect his clan! My hero!

Master John demonstrating the musket. In the foreground is the canon!

Demonstrating the long sword and hand canon.

It was a fantastic day out and there really is something for everyone. As over 80,000 people attended last year I do however recommend that you use the park and rides (there are several of them) rather than try to park in the town. The park and ride was free last time I used it. In fact the event itself is free! Maybe I should have mentioned that sooner. 

I'm now looking forward to the next date in my calendar, the Caerphilly Medieval Christmas market. Another one not to be missed and what little one wouldn't want to see Santa in such a gorgeous setting? Link below for more info.
www.visitcaerphilly.com/events/item/70823/Caerphilly_Medieval_Christmas_Fayre.html?

That's all from me for now. I hope you enjoyed the review and maybe I'll see you at the next event?

Cathy x
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L'il Miss Ty Siriol's letter

I'm so proud of my daughter. She's only 6 and she's taken it upon herself to write a letter to our Local Authority after we had the car accident last week. 

We had to use the same road again 2 days ago and she got really scared seeing where it happened. We were all anxious about it. After we'd passed the spot where it happened she said that someone should put speed bumps there and asked who she should ask. What a great idea! So I told her that she would have to write a letter to the Local Authority. The next thing I know she's thought about her letter and what she wanted to say and asked me if I'd type what she says. Well of course I would! Here's what she wrote. 

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Megan ***** and I am 6 years old. I wanted to write to you and my mummy is helping me by typing what I say.

Last week I was in a car accident and I got hurt. Daddy Matt was driving home on some lanes and a red car hit us very badly because he was going too fast around the corner. The red car hit the side I was sitting in and the door next to me was smashed. I banged my head and hurt my hip, my neck and my back. I’ve put in a picture of what I looked like after the accident for you to see. My Mummy got hurt as well and had to go to the hospital.

Please can you put speed bumps where it happened because I’m scared to go there again just in case it happens again.

Thank you,

Megan *****(aged 6)                                         Mummy, Dr Catherine *****(aged 36)

The photo that she included:

2 days after the accident.

I have taken out the bits that I added in brackets for clarity and the exact location. I think the letter as written by a 6 year old is fantastic and I really hope that she gets a response. 

This was the car afterwards.

This was a damn good car but is now on its way to the car graveyard.

 A bit of a sobering post I'm afraid but I'm seeing the good that has come out of it. L'il Miss has shown real maturity and has decided to do something about this. I am so proud of her. 

Cathy x 

 
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Crafting is my therapy

This post seems apt today as I'm recovering from a car accident a week ago. Don't worry, we'll all be fine and the crumple zones in the car did their job to perfection. The incident does have me thinking again about why I got back into crafting. 

I doubt many of you know that I used to have a full on career as a medical researcher. Yes, I have the title of Dr. However, things started to go wrong when I was pregnant with L'il Miss Ty Siriol and I became chronically ill with various autoimmune conditions. (I don't like the word disease as it sounds like I'm contagious.)

I went back to work after L'il Miss was born but after about 2 years of getting progressively worse I was medically retired by Atos. And believe me, if Atos says you can't work you must be bad. This came as a huge blow and I tried for 2 years to get back into work. I even volunteered in two places but couldn't cope. I had to admit defeat. It wasn't easy as I've always been very hard on myself and aim for perfection. I was very low.

So I gradually turned to my crafts again. I got the crochet hooks out again and now I have quite the collection of them, including Tunisian style.  I joined a pottery class and discovered a love for clay. Suddenly I found a new outlet. I had something else to focus my efforts on and happiness slowly returned. I was looking for progressively harder crochet patterns and techniques, including Tunisian and hairpin lace and I loved the challenge. Here's a pic of one of my hairpin lace shawls. 

White wedding shawl in hairpin lace and traditional crochet.

The nice thing is that I was able to do something productive on what I call my 'wipe out' days. These are days when my body has given up on me and says, 'NO! You are not doing anything today, you need to rest.' I spend these days on the sofa.

Even though my body might have failed me, my brain is still very much alive and needs regular exercise. Working through harder patterns was the exercise it needed. Craft really did become a therapy as it stopped me from going into a depression and kept me occupied.

Pottery and ceramics is a little different and I have to do this on my good (better) days. I've dropped liquid clay (slip) on the carpet twice now when I wasn't strong enough to carry it!! Good thing it's the carpet in the garage and not the house. No one except me goes out there. ;-) Here's some of my earlier work.

Slip cast ceramic kingfisher, robin and lily pitcher.

Hand built ceramic wall plaque, 'Grandma's garden'.

Hand built 'Wonky Cottage' but unfortunately I dropped it on the floor and destroyed it. :-(

Slip cast candle holders and matching decanter.

After a while I was finding that I had run out of space for all these creations. My friends and family had all been made a gift of some sort as well. I was getting lots of compliments about my work and I could see a huge improvement over the years. Many people said I should be doing craft fairs but unfortunately I'm not well enough to do them without a lot of support. So I turned to Etsy and starting to advertise my work. (I am HMRC registered by the way. :-) ) 

I found yet another therapeutic outlet through having a shop. I was suddenly in contact with so many wonderful people who shared my interests. Why hadn't I done this before? I really enjoy networking and exchanging ideas with like minded people. I'm also a nerd who loves the bookkeeping side!  I've also met a lot of people who are disabled and like myself have turned to crafts. Instead of feeling left out, as I did when I was first retired, I'm now part of something amazing. You guys keep me going through the bad days and I'm pleased to share my good days with you. You might not think that you've done anything special but I can tell you now that you have, you have made my life better and I thank you all for that. 

I'll leave you with a photo of me getting down and dirty with clay!! No Ghost comments please! Oh, go on then. :-)

Me!

Please follow me on facebook to keep up to date with new ideas, stock and offers. I can also be found on Etsy. (Links below.)  
Thank you for reading.  
Cathy x
www.facebook.com/TySiriolCeramicsandCrafts  
www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TySiriolCeramics

How to make one of my ceramic leaf bowls.

I often wonder, how do others regard 'handmade'?  

What I mean by this is do you think of 'handmade' as something knocked together by your granny, who lives by the make-do-and-mend mantra (which I agree with to a point), or do you see it as something handmade with love by an artisan and which is truly unique? I think both points of view exist, especially in different parts of the country, and the world.

I usually fall on the side of the artisan as I know first hand how much skill and passion goes into making things from scratch. I also appreciate the hand patched apron that granny might wear as I was raised to not be wasteful. 

For those who don't see the skill and passion involved in artisan hand-crafted items I'm going to take you on a journey through how I make one of my ceramic leaf bowls. 

How to make a ceramic leaf bowl. 

Greenware stage of making a leaf bowl.

Each piece of the bowl shown above has first been handmade (there's that word again!) from earthenware clay. The clay was rolled out and each leaf individually made. In this case I have a useful cutter and vein stamp that save me a lot of time but I don't always have them. Each leaf is hand cleaned to prevent any rough edges forming. I start from the base, which is in this example is a circle that I have precut, and assemble the leaves in an overlapping formation. This is important as I need to join the individual leaves to each other with liquid clay (slip). Each leaf is 'scored and slipped' to join them together. I use a bowl to form the shape of the leaf bowl as at this stage the clay is still wet and doesn't hold its shape.

The layers of leaves are built up to the required shape and size. For this bowl I added two little butterflies, which I think bring the piece to life. Here's a close up. 

Close up of the butterfly detail.

Now the bowl needs to be left at least a week in a cool place so that the clay can dry out. This is what we can the 'greenware' stage before firing. 

Once the bowl has dried thoroughly it is ready to be fired in a kiln up to temperatures of approximately 1050 degrees C. My garage gets rather warm! 

Did you know that I named my kiln? Well, I'm daft enough to do that sort of thing. I named him 'Kenny' so that I can say, 'Oh my god, I've kilned Kenny!' That's for the South Park fans out there. I do however, omit the last line as I could do without L'il Miss Ty Siriol learning that!

Anyway, this is a photo of the bowl after it has been 'bisque fired'. The clay at this stage is called 'bisque'. 

The leaf bowl after bisque firing.

The next stage is the painting. With this example I used a blend of pinks with a few glazes.

The first coat of pink glazes.

A second coat of the darker pink was blended in to intensify the colour at the leaf tips.

Once I was happy with the colours I had painted, bearing in mind that the colours will intensify in the kiln, the next stage was to paint on a 2-3 coats of clear glaze. The make I like paints on a pale green colour and looks like this.

The leaf bowl with 2-3 coats of clear glaze. It is now ready to be fired again.

I like to leave the glaze coat overnight before being fired again to make sure that it is fully dry and no bubbles occur. The bowl went back into the kiln for a glaze firing of temperatures up to about 1020 degrees C. I don't like to look too closely at the electric bill! :-)

I love the next bit best. After leaving the kiln to cool overnight it is time to crack it open and see what delights are in there. I never know firstly, if my items will survive the firing, as some things can explode if they are not dry enough, and second, what the colours are going to look like. It's like Christmas Day every time I open the kiln and thankfully I've usually been a good girl and things survive. :-)

The leaf bowl in the kiln after glaze firing. It survived!!

I am extremely pleased with how this bowl came out. I was also very happy as a good friend of mine commissioned it and I don't usually do these on commission due to the failure rate in the kiln. 

Here is the final photo before the bowl was given to its new owner. By the way, its owned by Tracy from Glasspirations. She is also a lover of artisan crafted items and an artisan in her own right. Check out her website here. www.glasspirations.co.uk/

The end result of many weeks work and ready for its new owner.

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and now have an insight into what it means when you buy something 'handmade'. I might not like everything I see, as we all have different tastes, but I can see the work and passion that has gone into making these bespoke pieces. I have a huge admiration for artisans and many have become good friends over the years. 

Please follow me on facebook to keep up to date with new ideas, stock and offers. I can also be found on Etsy. (Links below.)
Thank you for reading.
Cathy x

www.facebook.com/TySiriolCeramicsandCrafts
www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TySiriolCeramics